I give Orion a look.
He chuckles. “Yeah, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Portal magic is advanced but not rare. In time, we’ll be able to do it ourselves. Until then, we need the help of the fairies.”
“Gather in the center of the stones, please.”
We do as Laurel asks, and she extends her right hand. As she passes us in a slow, counterclockwise circle, she sprinkles blue and green glitter from her fingertips.
The sparkly confetti drops at first, but then swirls in a gentle cyclone around us.
I raise my hand, catching a few flecks. “Did you get this at Michaels? Because I swear this looks like the Glitz Mix the girls in my apartment building use in their pep rally signs.”
Orion grins. “Anything bright and sparkly works to catch the whimsy of the fairies.”
So. Many. Questions.
But instead of indulging, I push them down. Because, hello, the woman is building a portal to access an expanse between worlds. I don’t want her distracted.
When Laurel finishes her third circle, she stops and holds her hands out to me. “This is the part where you trust me, and hold my hand, so you don’t get left behind.”
When Eliza and Orion join hands, I follow suit. “I may not want to be left behind, but I don’t trust you in the slightest.”
Her fingers tighten around mine, and when I’m standing right beside her, she blows a wave of glitter into my face. I clamp my eyes shut, prepared to sputter, but the moment my eyes are closed, the world shifts.
It feels like my body turns into a weightless mist and I’m sucked into the swirl of a magical vortex. My stomach lurches like I’m on that centrifugal force carnival ride that sucks you backward against the walls, and pressure builds in my ears.
Wind whips around us, carrying scents of pine, ozone, and something else.
Something ancient and wild.
The ground falls away, and the weight of my bag lifts as it floats in the air in front of me. Suddenly, the chaos is gone, and my body reforms, my feet planting on solid ground. I stagger to the side, crashing into Orion, who holds me upright until the world stops spinning.
I wait until my mind stops sloshing inside my head.
There is nothing but stillness for a long beat, and then I gather myself enough to straighten and stand on my own.
Eliza offers me a sympathetic smile. “The first trip can be disorienting.”
Disorienting? That’s one way to put it.
It takes a moment for our surroundings to register, but when they do, goosebumps tingle to life across my skin.
We’re standing on a vast lawn that rolls toward a structure that can’t possibly be real.
When Wylder said I needed to come to the Arcana Academy to work on control, I envisioned a cross between Hogwarts and a magical summer camp.
This is nothing like that.
It’s like a magical medieval city. The main buildings rise before us, a group of sprawling architectural masterpieces, with spires and arches that gleam silver in the moonlight.
But it’s not just moonlight—the entire city seems to pulse with a gentle luminescence, as if the stones themselves are alive.
“Holy crapamoly,” I breathe, the sweetness of the air settling on my tongue.
“That’s one way to sum it up,” Orion says.
The surrounding night is alive in ways I can’t even explain. Floating orbs of soft blue light drift along pathways that wind through sprawling gardens where plants glow in purples, yellows, and greens.
Crystals embedded in the ground emit a soft radiance, marking the edges of the paths leading off into the forest in a dozen different places. Above us, the stars seem closer, brighter than I’ve ever seen them, as if the veil between earth and sky is thinner here.
